Printing for a variety of purposes has been indispensable to society for a long time. Printed products are mass produced, produced in-house by large to small enterprises and produced for personal use on home printing systems. Printing enables the sharing of documents, record keeping and many other important functions.
Relatively large-scale or commercial printing systems require relatively large amounts of ink or other printing fluid. The ink is selectively deposited on a print medium, such as paper, to form a printed document.
Because of the large quantity of ink required in some printing systems, ink tanks or reservoirs may be installed to provide the relatively large amount of ink needed for production with such a printing system. Frequently, these tanks are open or loosely sealed at the top so that additional ink can be readily added or ink levels can be monitored by the system operator.
However, as ink is circulated into and out of such tanks, the circulation tends to introduce air into the liquid ink. This causes foaming.
In an open tank, this foam can frequently build up until it overflows the tank. In other cases, the accumulated foam may saturate or penetrate the seal on the tank. In either case, the result is a mess that stains and may degrade equipment as well as a loss of ink that could otherwise be used in the printing process.